An Unorthodox Trainer Sticks to the Routine

Matz Is Keeping Barbaro on a Light Schedule

ELKTON, Md., May 16 -- Every day, it seems trainer Michael Matz arrives at his barn to find a different group of visitors waiting to take in the area's newest tourist attraction, the Kentucky Derby winner.

Last Friday morning, a group of Amish men were waiting for him in his barn. Every day, someone asks to see The Horse.

"The other day this guy is pushing a guy in a wheelchair up to the barn, and I said, 'What are you doing?' " Matz said. "And he said, 'I'm here to see Barbaro.' "

Matz, who trained Barbaro for his electrifying run at Churchill Downs, has a lot on his plate these days: preparing for the 131st Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico; getting about 50 other horses that spent the winter in Florida acclimated at Fair Hill Training Center; handling a stable of 20 more runners at Delaware Park; and dealing with the rising curiosity kicked up by the winner of the world's most famous horse race.

"And the 2-year-olds are about to come up from Florida," added Gretchen Jackson, who along with her husband, Roy, bred and owns Barbaro.

The nearly overwhelming volume of responsibility leaves Matz looking focused at one moment, distracted the next; tense and impatient, then enjoying a belly laugh.

"That's Michael," Jackson said. "You can tell him stuff, and he doesn't take it in. I think if it's about the horse -- and he's so focused on the horse -- and you're talking about the horse, he's listening. I don't know anybody who's more acutely aware of what's going on with a horse than Michael. His antennae are finely, finely tuned."

Matz may momentarily bristle at the demands on his time, but he has learned to compartmentalize.

"As long as they let me do my work," Matz said of all who ask something of him. "I don't think it's fair to the horses. They need peace and quiet also."

If so, they have the perfect locale at Fair Hill. The 350 acres of Maryland countryside gently rolls like a painting in a child's picture book. Horses graze lazily, encircled in mesh paddocks that dot the landscape. Immaculate barns have evocative names such as Fairy Chant and Perfect Sky. The land sits next to the 5,600-acre Fair Hill Preserve, formerly a foxhunting estate. The environment is a far cry from the rumble of car noise on the asphalt perimeter of the Pimlico stakes barn.

While dealing with his own pressures, Matz has attempted to cradle Barbaro in this cocoon of tranquility since the horse took the 10-hour van ride back to Maryland from Churchill Downs two days after the Derby. While the first Preakness horse arrived at Pimlico on Tuesday night, Barbaro will be held back until Friday morning, and if arriving race day weren't such a logistics nightmare, he might have done that.

Rest and mental health were as important as speed and fitness in getting Barbaro to the finish line first at Churchill Downs, according to Matz. Much was made of the five-week span between the horse's final prep race, the Florida Derby on April 1, and the Kentucky Derby. And there was an eight-week gap between races before that.

"I got tremendously criticized for that," Matz said, still appearing to be annoyed. "We know the dates of the Triple Crown. We didn't just make a decision by the seat of our pants. We knew what the dates of all the other prep races were. We could have gone into the Fountain of Youth [March 4 at Gulfstream Park], but I wanted a fresh horse."

Barbaro went into the Kentucky Derby undefeated, having raced just five times in his career. Only one other horse in the field of 20 had run less -- his stablemate Showing Up. Matz admits the effects of racing his horse on such a widely spaced schedule and then suddenly running him two weeks apart in hugely demanding races such as the Derby and Preakness are unknown.

"I'm sure it took something out of him, but what Kentucky Derby doesn't take something out of them?" Matz said. "He's eating good; his blood was good. He's going to the track fine. I don't think anyone knows how a horse is affected with just two weeks.

"I didn't want to get a horse that maybe peaked at the Kentucky Derby and doesn't have anything left. Sometimes, a lot of these horses are raced out or burnt out by the time they get to Kentucky. I didn't want to use him up."

He still doesn't. Barbaro will not have had a timed workout between the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Matz did nothing more than jog Barbaro when he returned from Churchill Downs, but he has stepped up the galloping this week. On Tuesday morning, Barbaro galloped 1 1/2 miles under exercise rider Peter Brette for a large group watching from the Fair Hill track's clock tower.

The day before, Matz didn't want to train until it stopped raining. In the late morning, he asked Sally Goswell, general manager at Fair Hill, if the wood-chip training track could be leveled out with a screen roller, and she obliged.

"That wasn't a problem," Goswell said. "Michael has always been great to deal with. I don't necessarily see him every day, but he just seems great to me. The guys who do the track maintenance were up here this morning, and he was talking to them. He seems to have time for everybody, but I would have to think seeing what I've seen that training Barbaro is a full-time job. People need to realize this isn't the only horse he is training."